Michael Fassbender was terrified of Aaron Sorkin's Steve Jobs script

Michael Fassbender was so convinced he was miscast as tech mogul Steve Jobs he considered breaking limbs to get out of the movie.

The movie star was handed the role after Leonardo DiCaprio and Christian Bale reportedly passed and now admits he initially thought he'd taken on too much by signing on for Danny Boyle's biopic when he first read through screenwriter Aaron Sorkin's script.

Talking to reporters at the Toronto International Film Festival in Canada, where he was honoured with a career retrospective on Wednesday night (07Sep16), he explained, "He (Sorkin) wrote all that stuff! It was so dense! It was such a mountain, and I'm a slow learner, so when the script arrived for me and the opportunity came to play the part, I really thought, 'This is not me. This should be somebody else. It's a miscast scenario'.

"In rehearsals I was trying to find a way to get out of the job. I remember telling my driver, 'If I put my arm in the door, you should slam it. It should cause a break and it should get me out of this gig'."

The performance in Boyle's film about the late Apple boss went on to earn Michael an Oscar nomination, so he clearly got something right.

The actor isn't sure the same can be said about his portrayal of Magneto in 2014's X-Men: Days Of Future Past.

"I don't actually like that performance there, to be honest," he said. "I just think it's me shouting. It's just like... some dude shouting." During the event, Fassbender also admitted that he had doubts about taking the title role in last year's Steve Jobs, a performance which later earned him an Oscar nomination, because he was put off by the wordiness of Aaron Sorkin's script.